Polymorphism Versus Species Richness—systematics of Large Dendrobates from the Eastern Guiana Shield (Amphibia: Dendrobatidae)
A molecular phylogeny based on a fragment of the mitochondrial 16 S rRNA gene and morphological comparisons suggests that only one polymorphic species of large Dendrobates, commonly assigned to D. tinctorius, occurs on the eastern Guiana Shield and its vicinities. The oldest available name for this taxon is D. tinctorius (Schneider, 1799). We place D. azureus Hoogmoed, 1969 as its junior synonym. Data for D. machadoi Bokermann, 1958 are not available, but we suspect that this name has to be treated in the same way. Dendrobates tinctorius exhibits numerous variants differing in color and pattern.Abstract
Maximum likelihood phylogram with MP (upper) and ML (lower) support values.
The data suggest that Dendrobates tinctorius is a polymorphic species (with D. azureus as a junior synonym, see text), in which four haplotypes can be identified. For allocation of haplotypes to variants assigned to D. tinctorius and to the nominal D. azureus see Table 1, and for inclusion of Dendrobates “sp. aff. azureus” see text.
Scatter plots for all combinations of residuals of the variables TDv, TDh, and ED to SVL for specimen of large Dendrobates from the eastern Guiana Shield and its vicinities (filled circles: type specimens and topotypic material of the nominal species Dendrobates azureus).
Contributor Notes
(KCW) ZOOLOGY DEPARTMENT, MAINZ UNIVERSITY, 55099 MAINZ, GERMANY;